We are so grateful to Dr Tani Omideyi for his outstanding leadership and service to the Evangelical Alliance as the chair of board of trustees. Here he shares some of his highlights from his time as chair and how you can pray for him as he hands on the baton.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself — how did you find God?

I was born into a Christian family with both parents strong believers, and my dad was an accomplished and highly skilled church organist, so I went to church from when I was born. I made a personal commitment to follow Jesus Christ as Lord when I was in secondary school, aged 13 years, after a couple of experiences that demonstrated the awesome power of God. It was not a question of finding Him, rather one of surrendering to follow Him.

What does Jesus mean to you?

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Everything really. He has been the centre of my life ever since that decision made some 54 years ago. I see Him always in my heart and my soul as my boss (one I must always obey), my friend (one that loves me more than all else), my king (one I live to worship).

As a keen worship songwriter, what are your favourite scriptures to inspire worship?

  • John 4:24 — ​“God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
  • Matthew 18:20 — ​“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
  • Isaiah 29:13 — ​“The Lord says: ​“These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

I never see worship as performance, so even during practices, I would always challenge my worship team or choirs as we start singing to realise that Christ is present among us as soon as we come together, even in our practice. They must always focus on Him and be authentic, be real, be true. That is worship.

What has it been like to chair our board during the pandemic and how did God show up during some of the challenges?

It was a strange experience indeed. Emotionally it felt like being on this amazing vessel together with an incredibly energetic team of leadership team and board, riding the strong waves of life together, listening to God as best we could to find out His heart for us and for the churches across our nations that we are there to serve and yet somehow lead. I think together we did well and for this I am thankful to God for His leading through the leadership team and the board members. Even during the challenging times we always felt He was with us ​‘in the boat’ and so all would be well.

What have been your highlights during your time with us?

There have been too many to count — the joy of working with wonderful brothers and sisters as board members, the many friendships built with people from so many strands of the body of Christ, the opportunity to learn and grow through these amazing relationships and experiences. I suppose some landmarks would be establishing both GATHER and the One People Commission as well as appointing Gavin Calver as successor to Steve Clifford. The final one was appointing a head of unity as I was stepping down, someone to be based in the north of England!

You go back a long way with the Evangelical Alliance, and are a pastor yourself. What excites you about our work with the church?

As a whole-hearted unity person, I can’t see any vehicle in the UK that stands to declare unity as well as the Evangelical Alliance. The Evangelical Alliance not only works to bring the body together but to marshal that into a strong voice to bring change to our nations. An absolutely amazing responsibility!

What are you hoping and praying for the future of the Evangelical Alliance going forward?

That it will continue to dispense those responsibilities well to further the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ; that the Evangelical Alliance will continue to be brave in its prophetic role of speaking into the nations’ agendas be it for the UK as a whole or in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland; that the membership of the Evangelical Alliance will rise dramatically over the coming years so the voice of the church can become ever so powerful, drowning out the voice of the world in the affairs of our nations.

How may our members pray for you as you move on to different things?

Pray that I will continue to be faithful to God, serving Him with all my heart as I have tried to do for the last 50 years. My longing desire is that like apostle Paul said, ​“I want to know Christ…” (Philippians 3:10).

Is there anything else you would like to say to our members as you step down?

Soon, we will come through this pandemic. It will never destroy the church, nothing can. As we do, let’s do a couple of things:

  1. Whatever lessons God has taught you as a congregation or collectively as the church, do take on those lessons fully. Otherwise it would have been a wasted season. Let all these ​“work together for our good”.
  2. More than ever, the nations have rediscovered the centrality of the church to the life of the nation be it through social action activities or others. Let’s not abandon those roles and foolishly retreat back to our buildings. As church we are not sent to be locked up in our buildings but to be salt and light in the world around us. Together as evangelicals the journey will get exciting in the next chapter.

Let’s stand together to play our part in the evangelisation and transformation of our nations.

We are so grateful to Rev Dr Tani Omideyi for his outstanding leadership and service to the Evangelical Alliance as the chair of board of trustees. We are delighted to announce that the board of trustees have appointed Manoj Raithatha as the new Chair of Board to take over the role from October 2021, chairing his first meeting in January 2022. Check out our interview with Manoj here.